Company Profile

Company Description:

Epicentre is a non-profit organisation created in 1987 by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which groups health professionals specialised in public health and epidemiology. In 1996, Epicentre became a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Research in Epidemiology and Response to Emerging Diseases.

Epicentre carries out operational research studies, mainly within MSF movement from its headquarters in Paris, satellites in Geneva, Brussels, New-York, and two field research bases in Mbarara, Uganda, and Maradi, Niger. Further, Epicentre offers its expertise to organisations requesting short-term field epidemiological studies in developing countries.

Within the scope of clinical research, Epicentre focuses on infectious diseases, particularly malaria, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, African trypanosomiasis, bacterial meningitis, measles, diarrheal diseases, and hemorrhagic fevers.

Context

In 1995, Epicentre created a permanent research base in Uganda to support MSF projects in the region. In 1997, Epicentre conducted its first survey on shigella resistance in Mbarara. The primary role of Epicentre in Mbarara is to conduct clinical research following Good Clinical Practice (GCP) requirements, on critical public health burdens in Uganda and Africa. To reach this objective, Epicentre collaborates closely with the Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST). A full-time experienced research team is based at the Epicentre Mbarara Research Base (EMRB). After a period characterized by research projects mainly oriented toward clinical trials on malaria, our research activity has been recently extended to include projects on tuberculosis, infectious diseases in children and HIV/AIDS.

The Mbarara research base is located in Mbarara Municipality, a town of 69,000 persons located 300 km South-West to Kampala. Mbarara District has a population of approximately 600,000 inhabitants, and is mainly rural. The main health facility is Mbarara National Referral Hospital which is also a teaching hospital for the MUST. This is the referral hospital for the Western region of Uganda with a capacity of 240 beds. The research base is structured into several departments: medical, administration, logistics, laboratory and information systems.